Allagash White

Bananas (the good kind)! 

Clover and banana flavors, like, somewhat cloudy, nice froth, you know what they say these days:  "delicious amazing, delicious, amazing, delicious, amazing, delicious". 

Sometimes they are right. 

Laird's Apple Jack

This was ordered by mistake, a very awzome, happy and Excellent mistake.  Best congyack ever, by Laird's of New Jersey, one of America's longest  apple wine and overall fermenting experts.

Redonkulous flavor.  Very good stuff. 

Sly Fox Reilly Stout at Gleason's in Peekskill, NY

Nice looking head, and color, but thin grool.  Its a very good looking stout, almost a cartoon stout, like-- "Look, I have a stout!", with low in ABV, if you're trying to keep it lite.  

But basically an epic Meh: it's aroma is sour, the bad kind, and an almost comically watery mouth feel, with a list of flavors it lacks that may be longer than the list of good names for a beer.  Not sure.  Could be cream corned, but not worth further study either.  I don't think it's the taps or drafting process. 

Just not a stout to write ... anything about.  No need to get mean about it-- back to the white board fellas. 

You know, Duncan Donuts will pitch a full batch of coffee and make a new batch when it's not fresh and right. 

Cherry Kombucha with Sprouted Chia Seeds

Making Cherry flavored Kombucha with sprouted Cherry Seeds is an easy hack once you have fermented your tea for the required amount of time to product bubbles along with the sour flavor, bordering on vinegar.  


Generally, I'm finding that Kombucha takes about 15 to 20 days to reach the level of carbonation enough to transfer to the fridge with some flavoring and adjuncts, such as chia seeds, wheatgrass juice or powder, or other things, such as vitamin C.

After all, part of the aim is to make a little more health promoting to drink than say, a high gravity ale or dessert wine, yes? 

In this case, Tart Cherry juice is added on bottling with chia seeds, which tend to sprout fast in the Kombucha, as you can see here, in the bottle that was made about 2 days ago.  The sugars in the Cherry juice will add fuel to Scoby's fire, producing more carbonation, so it's important to monitor the drink to avoid trouble. 

When they are ready to drink, Chia seeds get more slimy than when they are in dry form and taste like hard, nearly microscopic pellets.












As I understand it, the type of tea you use doesn't make a very big difference, but I'm having a lot of success with this bulk Oolang I got at Fairway. 

Draining Off Kombucha and Adding Back Water and Honey to the SCOBY

When your making Kombucha, it's important to check your symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast, or "Scoby", which floats around at the top, or bottom.  

As long as it looks alive, it's generally doing it's job, eating the sugars and turning your chosen variety of tea into a   highly probiotic, mildly acidic, carbonated drink.

When it's time to drain off some Kombucha, it's also time to add back more ingredients to replace what's displaced, which is to say just boiled, cooled water and some form of sugar (honey is my preferred form for fermenting because it's basically sterile and does not require boiling to remove impurities that could harm the Scoby).  

PB IPA

This IPA went down too fast to take notes on.  Overall, more very good stuff. 

I think the jet glass cleaner makes a huge difference too. 

PB's Skill Pils

Another sample of Peekskill Brewery's new beers, as opposed to the stuff that came out of the old system in the other building, which was more often than not, suspect, to be kind. 

Skill Pils is awesome too.  Nice bitter aroma, frothy, light, creamy, bitter hoppy flavor. Overall excellent flavor, well balanced body to hops.  Nicely done.